DOJ Finally Going To Force Law Enforcement Agencies To Hand Over Info On People Killed By Police Officers

from the better-late-than-never dept

At long last, the federal government is getting serious about tracking the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers.

For most of the last two decades, the DOJ has been collecting this information from local law enforcement agencies, but only on a voluntary basis. As a result, the federal numbers have nearly no relation to the real numbers -- which have been compiled by a handful of private actors, including The Guardian, a UK-based journalistic entity.

Last June, legislators introduced a bill (that promptly went nowhere) which would replace voluntary reporting with mandatory reporting. The FBI expressed its concern about the government's inability to collect accurate information on citizens killed by police officers, offering on multiple occasions to replace its voluntary system with a better voluntary system.

Police departments will be required to give the US justice department full details of deadly incidents involving their officers each quarter, under a new government system for counting killings by police that was influenced by the Guardian.

Announcing a new program for documenting all “arrest-related deaths”, federal officials said they would actively work to confirm fatal cases seen in media reports and other open sources rather than wait for departments to report them voluntarily.

This still lets local PDs off the hook in terms of immediate self-reporting. But that's probably ok, as there's nothing in the reporting of deaths at the hands of police officers that encourages urgency or transparency from law enforcement agencies. With the feds independently verifying reported deaths -- i.e., those reported by journalists -- delays between reports and their addition to the federal numbers will be decreased dramatically.

Law enforcement agencies aren't completely off the hook, however. They'll still be required to report in custody deaths to the Justice Department. The difference is that the DOJ will no longer wait around for agencies to self-report. Local agencies heavily reliant on federal funding will probably be the agencies filling out these reports the fastest.

In their Federal Register article, officials cited their authority under the death in custody reporting act – a law that states local departments must report all deaths in custody to the justice department or lose 10% of their federal funding. The law has been largely ignored since being reauthorized in December 2014.

The other change of note is that this will no longer be a year-end tabulation after all the self-reporting is completed. Agencies can fill out one form for 2016's total deaths, but going forward will be required to hand these in quarterly.

Agencies will also be responsible for collecting a lot of data they've never had to previously. Details about the deadly incident will need to be provided, along with demographic data on the deceased. Coroners and medical examiners serving law enforcement agencies will also need to turn over information to the government and will be asked to confirm local news reports on officer-involved deaths.

This is a huge step forward for a federal agency that has long relied on voluntary reporting from compliant law enforcement agencies to tabulate the use of deadly force by officers. It's a sign that the federal government finally realizes the good people in law enforcement can't be relied on to hand over data on incidents that make them look less that perfect on a voluntary basis. Targeting federal funding is a smart move because that's the sort of money that gets spent on surveillance tools and 1033 acquisitions that agencies normally couldn't afford without it.

The real test will come when it's implemented, as it often takes more than federal mandates to alter entrenched cultures where accountability and transparency are considered weaknesses.

Reader Comments

A good first step

This is the first step and long overdue. It's unthinkable that civilian deaths have not been tracked on the federal level when it's been proven there are rogue departments. Now maybe based on the figures, an investigation can take place rather than based on protest and outrage as it is now. I don't think any police dept would want to see themselves at the bottom, nor would voters.